APTOS, Calif. – President Joe Biden said Thursday he has “no regrets” in his handling of the classified documents found at a private office in Washington and at his Delaware home, pledging cooperation with the Justice Department and expressing confidence that the matter would be resolved.
“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” he said, in his fullest comments since last week amid new developments including the appointment of a special counsel in the matter.
“I have no regrets in following what the lawyers have told me what they want me to do – it’s exactly what we’re doing,” he added. “There’s no there there.” Biden made the remarks after touring flood damage here, meeting with small business owners and seeing several affected sites – and initially expressed annoyance with the question.
“I’ll answer your question but here’s the deal. You know, what quite frankly bugs me is that we have a serious problem here we’re talking about, talking about what’s going on,” he said. “And the American people don’t quite understand why you don’t ask me questions about that.”
He told a staffer to hang on while he answered.
“Look, as we found a handful of documents that were filed in the wrong place, we immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department,” he continued. “We are fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”
The first set of classified documents were found at his post-vice presidential office in November by one of Biden’s personal attorneys, Pat Moore, while Moore was cleaning out the office and were turned over to the National Archives. Another set of classified material was found at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home in late December, but neither discovery was made public until earlier this month. A third set of documents were found at the Delaware home last week.
Biden’s comments in California came a week after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel – Robert K. Hur, a senior official at the Justice Department during the Trump administration – to lead Justice’s investigation into the matter.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Matt Viser, Mariana Alfaro
